Briquetted charcoal is currently and extensively used as a cooking and heating fuel. While effectively generating heat, briquetted charcoal, when combined with lighter or starter fluid or fat, emits fumes which may be inhaled by those in the surrounding area and which are absorbed into the cooked food, thereby being further introduced into the body. It is suspected by many health professionals and scientists that those fumes are harmful and carcinogenic. There is therefore a need to provide a heating and cooking fuel, effective to produce a desired amount of heat while substantially reducing the amounts and levels of the harmful charcoal-produced fumes.
Current biodegradable germination mediums are used to promote the growth of young plants and seedlings. While effective, many of these mediums contain organisms which infectiously destroy the very plants and seedlings whose growth they are designed to promote. One such pathogen is commonly referred to as "damping-off" fungi. In order to prevent such destruction from occurring, non-biodegradable mediums such as gypsum rock wood and vermiculite are used. While these mediums are germinatically effective, they must be later processed, as waste, thereby increasing cost and complexity to the germination process. There is therefore a need to provide a germination medium which is biodegradable, is effective to promote the growth of young plants and seedlings, and which provides substantially little or none of the harmful infectiously destructive affects on the young plants and seedlings which are associated with current biodegradable germination mediums.
Oil contaminated water is usually cleaned by use of relatively expensive microorganisms which are adapted to consume the oil; by use of agents which chemically interact with the oil and produce a non-biodegradable compound which is naturally dispersed throughout the water and which is difficult to later collect and dispose of; or by manually absorbing the oil by use of "sponge-like" materials. Such manual absorption being very inefficient and impractical for large areas, but having the advantage of allowing for extraction of the spilled oil for later use. No current product or technique is known which allows the oil to be easily and efficiently removed from water by a biodegradable material and which allows the absorbed oil to be later reclaimed. There is therefore a need to provide a biodegradable substance which absorbs the spilled oil and which allows the absorbed oil to be recovered and later used.